Cannot start Window Managers

FKereki · 03-26-2006, 03:05 PM

I am using OpenSuSE 10.0, and I found a while ago that I cannot start any window managers (for example, WindowMaker, BlackBox, FluxBox, IceWm... I installed a lot of them, but none works!) other than the standard KDM. What should I check?

jonaskoelker · 03-26-2006, 03:31 PM

please go read www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html.

What do you mean by "I cannot start any window managers (...)?" That you don't know how to tell your machine that you want to start other window managers than whatever it is you're currently running, or that your computer refuses to start them?

If the former, I don't know.

If the latter, how do you start the window managers? What output do they produce on stdout and stderr, respectively? Please post your ~/.xsession-errors.

FKereki · 03-26-2006, 04:52 PM

When I start a new session, and pick ANY window manager but KDE, it just ignores my choice and starts KDM anyway.

jonaskoelker · 03-26-2006, 05:00 PM

AIUI, KDM isn't a window manager, it's a session manager. If it's not too much trouble, install GDM and use that instead of KDM, to see what gets replaced (sure, if you know what a session manager is, or have an easier way of finding out, do that instead). Try putting "exec /path/to/fluxbox" in your ~/.xsession, and select that when you login.

FKereki · 03-26-2006, 05:12 PM

Just in case it helps, this is a portion of the WindowMaker configuration file -- the rest of the file is for internationalization purposes.

Quote:

linux:/usr/share/xsessions # cat WindowMaker.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
X-SuSE-translate=true
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=XSession
Exec=windowmaker
TryExec=windowmaker
Name=WindowMaker